Button Box

A young girl finds herself living in two different worlds – the present and a dangerous Victorian past.

When Susan’s dad wants to marry again, she is thrown into a whole new family where she feels excluded. Playing with her much loved old button box for comfort, she discovers a passage to a different time – the busy turmoil of 1850s London. Here, she lives with Baxter, a canny orphan boy who has adopted her as his sister.

With Baxter, Susan is never lonely, but children like them must work and do almost anything to get by. Surviving as best they can on the criminal margins of a colourful city, they are soon drawn into dangerous activities.

Baxter and Susan plunge together into wild adventures in a tangled Victorian underworld. They meet extraordinary people from all walks of life –  costermongers, thieves and fences, acrobats and street children, eccentric scientists, a rich explorer, nightmarish villains, and even  Queen Victoria herself.

A lively and gripping story full of suspense and atmosphere, ‘Button Box’ will take you into another world!